Related papers: Cleaning up the cosmological constant
We show that scale invariance provides a solution to the fine tuning problem of the cosmological constant. We construct a generalization of the standard model of particle physics which displays exact quantum scale invariance. The matter…
We review the most general scalar-tensor cosmological models with up to second-order derivatives in the field equations that have a fixed spatially flat de Sitter critical point independent of the material content or vacuum energy. This…
In order to clarify why the zero-point energy associated with the vacuum fluctuations cannot be a candidate for the dark energy in the universe, a comparison with the Casimir effect is analyzed in some detail. A principle of epistemology is…
A consistency condition of general relativity as an effective field theory in Minkowskian background uniquely fixes the value of the cosmological constant. In two-loop calculations, including the interaction of gravitons with matter fields,…
Following fresh attempts to resolve the problem of the energy density of the vacuum, we reconsider the case where the cosmological constant is derived from a higher-dimensional version of general relativity, and interpret the…
The discrepancy between the observed value of the cosmological constant (CC) and its expected value from quantum field theoretical considerations motivates the search for a theory in which the CC is decoupled from the vacuum energy. In this…
Recently the global variation of the Planck mass in the General Relativistic Einstein-Hilbert action was proposed as a self-tuning mechanism of the cosmological constant preventing vacuum energy from freely gravitating. We show that this…
It is pointed out that a collider experiment involves a local contribution to the energy-momentum tensor, a circumstance which not a common feature of the current state of the Universe at large characterized by the cosmological constant…
We generalize Einstein's Lagrangian in a non-polynomial (in R) way. The usual Lagrangian (linear in R) is the zero $\alpha'$ limit of our theory, where $\alpha'$ is a parameter that is interpreted as the inverse cosmological costant before…
In the present manuscript, I examine an intriguing relation at the classical level between general relativity and a theory where matter couples uniquely multiplicatively to geometry in the Lagrangian density. Interestingly, the…
The fluctuations of the vacuum energy are treated as a non-equilibrium process and a stochastic model for the cosmological constant is presented, which yields a natural explanation for the smallness or zero value of the constant in the…
We consider the standard model with local scale invariance. The theory shows exact scale invariance of dimensionally regulated action. We show that massless gauge fields, which may be abelian or non-abelian, lead to vanishing contribution…
One of the most important concepts in logic and the foundations of mathematics may be useful in providing an explanation for the cosmological constant problem. A connection between self-reference and consciousness has been previously…
Lord Kelvin believed that the electromagnetic aether must also generate gravity. Presently, we have no methods to determine the density of the electromagnetic aether, or we say the $\Omega(1)$ substratum. Thus, we also suppose that vacuum…
We discuss how to extract information about the cosmological constant from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, considered as an eigenvalue of a Sturm-Liouville problem in a generic spherically symmetric background. The equation is approximated to…
It is suggested that the exact value of the cosmological constant could be derived from first principles, based on entanglement of the Standard Model field vacuum with emergent holographic quantum geometry. For the observed value of the…
The high-quality cosmological data, which became available in the last decade, have thrusted upon us a rather preposterous composition for the universe which poses one of the greatest challenges theoretical physics has ever faced: the…
One of the most enduring and unresolved challenges in modern theoretical and observational cosmology is the fine-tuning and coincidence problems associated with the cosmological constant. Rather than attempting to reconcile these issues…
A new approach to the cosmological constant problem is proposed by modifying Einstein's theory of general relativity, using instead a scalar-tensor theory of gravitation. This theory of gravity crucially incorporates the concept of quantum…
With attempts to quench the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ having so far failed, we instead investigate what could be done if $\Lambda$ is not quenched and actually gets to be as big as elementary particle physics suggests. Since the…